CONTRACTS AND ACQUISITIONS MANAGEMENT

Contracts and Acquisitions Management (CAM) is responsible for the solicitation, award, administration, and closeout of all contracts and other acquisition instruments for the Department including the ten Regional Offices, but excluding FSA. The office’s mission is to proactively lead the acquisition process, planning, negotiating, awarding and administering contracts, advancing the Department’s mission to serve America’s students.
In carrying out its responsibilities, the Immediate Office:

Supports ED’s socioeconomic goals through advocacy for appropriate use of small business prime and sub-contracting authorities, within applicable Federal and Departmental laws, regulations, guidelines and procedures.

Advocates for adequate competition in procurements throughout the Department.

The Director, CAM, reports to the Deputy CFO for Management and Operations. The Director is responsible for the overall management of the CAM’s procurement functions and provides leadership and coordination to the immediate office staff and to the following components:

Each of the Contracting Groups provides contracting and acquisition support to designated client offices.
In carrying out its responsibilities, each group:

Develops acquisition plans in conjunction with program offices and advises clients on the preparation of requirement descriptions (statements of work), contractor performance measures, evaluation criteria and other aspects of the procurement process.

Prepares and issues acquisition solicitations, reviews incoming proposals and bids for conformity with requirements, and advises program offices in the evaluation of these materials.

Negotiates with offerors, performs pre-award reviews as necessary to assess the technical and business management capacity of offerors, makes source selection decisions, and awards contracts and other acquisition instruments and debriefs offerors.

Provides guidance to CAM on acquisition-related policies issued by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP), General Services Administration, Office of Management and Budget, and other authorities.